TIVO, DISH SETTLE LAWSUITS

Acknowledging that TiVo’s legal strategy of enforcing its DVR patents was “formidable,” satellite TV provider DISH said today (Monday) that it had reached a settlement with DISH over all remaining litigation. As part of the settlement, DISH and corporate sibling Echostar Communications will pay TiVo $500 million — $300 million now, the remainder in six [...]

TIVO SHARES SOAR ON COURT VICTORY OVER DISH

Shares of TiVo rose as high as 51 percent on Wednesday after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision that satellite broadcaster DISH Network and its parent, EchoStar Communications had infringed on TiVo’s DVR patents. It ordered DISH to disable the infringing DVRs. DISH and EchoStar later issued a statement saying that they [...]

REPORT: EBERSOL AND COMCAST CLASH OVER OLYMPICS

NBC Sports and Olympics chief Dick Ebersol is locking horns with Comcast, NBC’s new owners, over the network’s bid for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics, the New York Post reported today (Tuesday). The newspaper quoted one source as saying, “This is a big test of what Dick’s role is.” Under previous owner GE, Ebersol had [...]

REPORT: MORE TV VIEWERS USING DVR’S

More and more viewers are watching TV programs after recording them on their DVRs, says a new study by Nielsen Research. According to the study released on Wednesday, the average U.S. TV viewer watched nearly 10 1/2 hours of time-shifted TV per month by the end of 2010, with a huge jump recorded in the [...]

DVR’S FALL VICTIM TO “SOCIAL TV”

“Social TV,” in which young viewers use cellphones to communicate with friends about shows they are currently watching, is reversing the trend to record shows on DVRs and watch them at some later time, according to a survey conducted in the U.K. by Digital Clarity. According to the study, 80 percent of users below the [...]

IS THE DVR REALLY TO BLAME FOR FALLING RATINGS AT 10:00 P.M.?

While network executives have been blaming the DVR for the low ratings of 10:00 p.m. shows in recent years, today’s (Monday) New York Times points out that many cable shows during that hour are thriving. For example, it noted, MTV’s Jersey Shore, which airs at 10:00 p.m. on Thursdays, averages about six million viewers in [...]

O’BRIEN TOP TALK SHOW HOST AMONG YOUNGER VIEWERS

Conan O’Brien may be running behind Jay Leno in terms of total viewers, but he was the top-rated talk show host among adults 18-49 and 18-34 in the fourth quarter, his network, TBS, said on Tuesday. The show’s median age is just 33, the cable network noted (that is, half his audience is younger than [...]

COMCAST BRINGING LIVE TV TO IPADS

Saying that its goal is to “reinvent how customers interact with their entertainment on TV, online and on mobile devices,” cable giant Comcast has announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it plans to offer live television programming and thousands of hours of video-on-demand content via Apple’s iPad and other tablet devices [...]

“CORD CUTTING” NO SIGNIFICANT FACTOR, SAYS CBS RESEARCH CHIEF

CBS’s chief ratings tracker David Poltrack has dismissed concerns by some pay-TV analysts that TV viewers are likely to drop cable-TV and satellite service and opt for downloading or streaming shows via the Internet. In fact, Poltrack told the 38th annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York, rather than cutting the cords [...]

NEW SEASON GETS OFF TO SLOW START

A massive effort by the broadcast networks to roll out new and returning shows during the first week of the new season failed to pay off, the Wall Street Journal indicated today (Monday). Citing Nielsen data, the newspaper reported that an average of 9.7 million viewers tuned in to the four major networks during primetime [...]

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